Commentary and analysis on American politics, culture, and national identity, U.S. foreign policy and international relations, and the state of education
- from a neoconservative perspective! - Keeping an eye on the communist-left so you don't have to!

As noted yesterday, Trump has three constituencies rather than the usual two to please in appointing cabinet members and senior aides. He’s got his true believers, the people who voted for him; he’s got the people who worked for him and who actually helped him get elected, the spoils-system recipients; and he’s got the majority of the country, the Democrats, independents, and Trump-skeptic Republicans who watched the returns Tuesday night thinking Do I need to buy gold? The ideal pick for each job is someone who checks all three boxes. When push comes to shove, his voters need to be satisfied first. But if you can find a pick who makes everyone happy, why not pick them?

The only position I’ve seen Kellyanne Conway touted for so far is White House press secretary, which makes some sense. She was Trump’s most effective surrogate during the campaign by a country mile. If you’re looking within Trump’s inner circle for someone to be a day-to-day liaison to the national media, you couldn’t do better. But here’s the problem: Press secretary is a stupid, garbage job. The daily press briefing is one of the dreariest rituals in modern politics. Those who are good at it have perfected the art of saying nothing meaningful in a lot of words. Given what Conway accomplished in steering Trump to one of the unlikeliest national victories in American history, it’s borderline insulting to reward her with a position that lame.

Chief of staff, arguably the single most influential job in the White House apart from the presidency itself, would be better and would recognize the magnitude of her accomplishment. You could say the same for Steve Bannon, the campaign’s CEO and reportedly a top contender for the position, but between his Breitbart pedigree, his support for the alt-right, and the dirty laundry that the media aired this summer and will gleefully revisit if he’s named as COS, choosing him would freak out the third group I named above and will be treated by the press as confirmation of all their worst fears about Trump, rightly and wrongly. There’ll be headlines about how picking Bannon is a declaration of war on minority America — and on the rest of the GOP, given Bannon’s antipathy to Paul Ryan — and that’ll set the tone for everything going forward. (Besides, everyone understands that Bannon will be an eminence grise even if he’s not named to any formal position.) Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, is another contender for the job. He seems capable and his instincts appear sound (he was reportedly in favor of dumping Corey Lewandowski over the summer), but he’s a political novice. As a friend said to me yesterday, Trump naming his daughter’s husband to a major position like COS without any experience would come off like something a Panamanian dictator would do. I think all three groups above would tolerate it, but there would be a lot of “huh?” and “amateur hour” reactions in group three, fairly or not.